Touching an alligator

I got to touch an alligator to try to make it go to sleep. The guy said if I touched it wrong I would get a puddle of consequences. I knew what he meant. It meant the alligator would pee on me. The guy really used a squirt gun to squirt some water out. My eyes got really big when when I thought it really peed, says Daddy.

Note from Mom: We attended a great Earth Day program in our community called Embracing Our Earth. One presentation was from Animal Encounters and covered the food chain in a tropical rainforest. It was very good. Before Mike brought out a small alligator (either the one in the picture above or one of its counterparts) he asked if anyone has ever wanted to wrestle an alligator. No one. He asked for a volunteer to try, and Addy was the only one to raise her hand. He brought out the gator and asked if she'd like to put her head in it's mouth. Of course, she said yes. Apparently he didn't know what kind of kid he was getting to volunteer. He actually had her pet the alligator on the belly while he held it on its back and that caused it to fall asleep. First he joked that if she did it wrong, she'd get the puddle of consequences and he used the squirt gun.

Multi-Cultural Night at Lakers

We watched some dancers do a really cool dance, and they had a part where the kids could come up and dance, too.

After that, we went into hear a man talk about modern Greece.

Note from Mom: Ironically, this picture showing the back of our little homeschoolers' heads is on the front page of the public school web site where this event was held. The school organized a community wide Multi-Cultural Night with a variety of speakers talking about a variety of cultures. It was a good event, too bad the attendance was light. We had a good time. We ate a meal prepared by the chef at the local good restaurant (yeah, there's just one) and he included foods from around the world. The kids weren't so keen on all the foods, but it was a nice idea. We spent our time watching the flamenco dancers, then seeing a man present his travelogue from Greece. It was a nice tie-in to our current lessons on ancient Greece. It was about as exciting as most travelogues are, but Addy was surprisingly interested. She's the one who wanted to stay later, but bedtime was approaching.